Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Paul Volkmann. Epistemological Foundationsof the Natural Sciences(Sciences and Hypothesis, IX).Second Edition. Leipzig, 1910

Written:1915Source:Lenin’sCollected Works, 4th Edition, Moscow, 1976,Volume 38, p. 328Publisher:Progress PublishersFirst Published:1930 inLenin Miscellany. 
	  Published according to the manuscriptTranslated:Clemence DuttEdited:Stewart SmithTranscription & Markup:K. Goins(2008)Public Domain:Lenin Internet Archive (2008).You may freely copy, distribute, display and 
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Note on Paul Volkmann’s book “Erkenntnistheoretische
    Grundzüge der Naturwissenschaften”(Wissenschaft und Hypothese.
	IX) 2.Auflage, Leipzig, 1910[Paul Volkmann,Epistemological Foundations
	of the Natural Sciences(Science and Hypothesis. IX), 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1910]
	is contained in a notebook following the comments on Genov’s dissertation.

PAUL VOLKMANN.EPISTEMOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OFTHE NATURAL SCIENCES

(Nat. IV. 171 in Bern library)

The author is an eclectic and vulgariser in philosophy, especially
	    when speaking against Haeckel, about Buckle, etc.,
	    etc. Nevertheless, the tendency is materialist, e.g., p. 35[1]—“The
	    question whether we dictate concepts to nature, or nature to
	    us” is, he says, a combination of both points of
	    view.Mach, he says, is right (p. 38), but I
	    counterpose to it (Mach’s point of view) the
	    “objective” point of view:

“Thus I hold that logic in us has its origin in the uniform
	    course of things outside us, that the external necessity of natural
	    events is our first and most real schoolmis tress” (p. 39).

He rebels against phenomenology and modern monism,—but
	    completely fails to understand theessenceof materialist
	    and idealist philosophy. In fact, he reduces the matter to
	    “methods” of natural science in a general positivist
	    sense. He is not even capable of raising the question of the
	    objective reality of natureoutsidethe consciousness (and
	    sensations) of mankind.

[1]Volkmann, P.,Erkenntnistheoretische Grundzüge
	  der Naturwissenschaften, Leipzig-Berlin, 1910.—Ed.